The Doll Factory Quotes
"When the streets are at their darkest and quietest, a girl settles at a small desk in the cellar of a dollmaker’s shop."
"Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable, and life is more than a dream."
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness."
"The trouble is, Silas often thinks he has found his special, unique item, but then he finishes the work and finds himself hounded by doubts, by the ache for more."
"Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying."
"It is exasperating, Silas thinks as he stares around the pokey shop, that the dullest items are those which pay his rent."
"The scale of her face is just as wrong as she remembered. At first Iris feels overwhelmed by a despair that she is not, and never will be, good enough."
"He likes to talk to his creatures, to make up histories which have landed them on his slab."
"She bites her lip, shakes out a little blue powder and dabs her paintbrush into the bottle of water once more."
"He will redouble his efforts. He will work harder, later, and perhaps one day he will open a museum even grander than this."
"Megalosaurus, Megalosaurus, Megalosaurus."
"You can call me by my Christian name. Silas."
"But we are doing something new in art, and it takes time."
"I expect I wouldn’t find your work to my liking either."
"I live for painting. If I couldn’t paint, I don’t know what I’d do."
"I was doing my best to imitate your marble hand."
"I can’t get him right. Guigemar. It feels too idealized, too typical."
"If this is imprisonment, I’d delight in it."
"By Jove, what a secret you’ve kept her."
"It’s all wrong! I’m sure they will reject it."
"I've been a fool all of this time, to think that there was even a slight chance."
"I hope you will accept my imperfect situation and realize that you are in no way stained by association with me."
"I'm sorry for liking you – I'm sorry for thinking you were different."
"I've begun to wonder – well, if love isn't something quite different from all of that."
"I will understand if, following an explanation of my situation, you decide to quit my employ."
"Why must there be a legal document declaring you love one another?"
"She wants all of him. She wants to be as close as she can to him, to be a part of him – to give herself to exquisite disgrace."
"I urge you to write to me at your earliest availability."
"He grasps her clavicle, and it comes loose like a butcher’s cut."
"Punctuality for a gentleman is important, to be neither early nor tardy."
"I’ll have fine ivories soon, you’ll see if I don’t."
"I want to be taken seriously as a painter, you know. Do you think a woman can be?"
"I received the most peculiar letter yesterday."
"What a majestic creature she is! So tall!"
"How could you do it to Mama and Father, to me?"
"If you interfere... I will find that rat of your sister."
"Remarkable. Perhaps he could make you a little something for your cabinet."
"It isn’t for sale. Not even if Ruskin himself were to ask."
"I don’t want to be apart from you, ever."
"The disappointment is a slap, a cool rankling, and she can bear it no longer."
Leave," she says, the final wrench. "Go – I will fetch you a cab.
"I won’t say anything – but I beg you, please, let me go."
"I hate you – I hate you with every ounce of my being, every last breath in my body."
"I won’t let her go, damn it! I’ll get to the bottom of it – if you’ve hurt her, you’ll be sorry – I love her."
"I wish someone would want to be, but they all despised me."
"Pain stabs at her legs, her arms, her head with its slow pulsing headache, but she hurls herself at the wall again and again and again."
"But she will fight it. She will. She must."
"Her eyes are a little blurred. I think— Dead or alive – is she—"
"She tries to shout at him, to swear, but she is so thirsty she cannot form the words."
"Do not come down, she urges him in her head. Do not—"
"She has never experienced thirst like this. It hollows her out, gnaws at her insides, makes her head feel swollen with the sharp pain of it."
"She thinks there is nothing left within her. And yet."
"The light! She wants to drink it in, to savour every last drop."
"The darkness is so soft and so warm, a goose-down counterpane."
"A convex mirror is discernible on the wall, portraying a broader dimension outside the scope of the painting."
"The world takes on sudden flashes, a rough score of a palette knife, the abrupt violence of hurled paint on a finished piece."
"Her vision falters, and she knows her only chance is surprise."
"The sun is sudden, pure. A slant of light, so bright she feels she could snag it between her fingers."